VC381

What on earth do you need range in excess of 18km for? Isn't Monarch also super stealthy allowing it to get close then disengage? If it's inaccurate buff sigma or something but we don't need every BB having 20km+ range, it's pretty pointless.

So what are the percentages in that graph? Proportion of shells within a certain area at each range? As for penetration, Kronshtadt is a cruiser and has for more freedom and ability to position accordingly. BBs might angle against you in a 1v1 scenario but overall they usually have other priorities and I've had no shortage of perfect broadsides and max range citadels on BBs. The thing that makes the ship feel consistent for me is that I've had citadels on consecutive salvos, not one blap one derp that's so common with BBs. I'm more worried about the impact on other cruisers if Kronshtadt is made more accurate.

Where did you get the graph? Own testing? I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I: a) always assumed Kronshtadt had Graf Spee style dispersion already b) feel from my limited experience with Kronshtadt so far that it is a very accurate ship. I have Iowa as well, which is deliciously accurate for a BB, but Kronshtadt to me does not feel like a lottery in the slightest. I've been averaging more citadels per game than Iowa that's for sure. The trouble is, a ship like Kronshtadt can very easily get out of hand if you make one aspect too strong. A cruiser that can reliably citadel T10 BBs at close to max range, that already does it fairly reliably, getting even better at it? I mean, sure, I would love you to make my railguns laser guided on top of how good they already are, but you'll need to take away more than 10k HP for me to not feel like I need a shower after every game in the thing. If you want Graf Speed dispersion, you need to lose that 10k HP, reload to 20s and probably nerf the HE as well. And it will still perform like an utter boss in randoms.

Assuming there are optimal tactics with respect to BB positioning, then if a player, regardless of how good, must use different tactics that are less optimal, if they're constantly on their toes or on the back foot by the mere presence of a ship, then Asashio has won a small victory without firing a single shot. You don't need your torps to be super stealthy but you need them to have the range. 10km Kagero torps can't be used for area denial against BBs, because they simply won't reach. At least, not if you value your own ship. Unless the enemy escorts are incompetent, but then you're saying Asashio only works if BBs are incompetent. The other thing 20km torps allow you to do is to take one cap while doing area denial at another. It's giving a DD cross-map impact it usually can't have. The number of BBs in a random game and their overall impact and perceived power is an issue. Any other DD might be better at sinking DDs and cruisers, but there are enough BBs on a team to wipe out all the enemy cruisers, and enough cruisers on a team to radar/deny/sink enemy DDs. Hell, most BBs have no problems wiping out half a DDs health in one salvo once it's been radared. So having a DD that just does more of that is simply not necessary, it's just redundant. On the other hand, having a DD that can surgically target enemy BBs almost irrespective of range or escort is unique and removes a threat on the enemy team far more efficiently than currently anything else in the line-up can (except maybe an AP CV).

This is the point I've been making since the ship was announced in this form. It is unconventional but it basically tries to win by sinking or deterring enemy BBs so your team has more flexibility without this threat. Of course being team reliant can be a bad thing too in randoms. I don't completely agree with this point. At high tiers, even great BB players are prone to sticking to known "good positions" and bow tanking or otherwise being static. They're safe in doing this mostly because DDs who are doing what DDs are meant to do (spotting between the teams, contesting caps etc.) can't get past the cruiser screen to get in range to torp them. Asashio is one of the very few DDs (the others being T10 anyway) that can be where a DD needs to be (sub-optimally I accept, but there nevertheless) while still being able to threaten and shift those pesky BB blockades that stop your team pushing. This is not reliant on the enemy BBs being dumb. Area denial torping is a thing for every DD, and it's not usually cruisers you're trying to deny. Asashio is the best BB denial DD in the game.

Well, Musashi is available for both Free XP and coal. But Kronshtadt isn't. Maybe we'll have something similar for future T9 premiums, maybe not.

I have seen the MM do this. It prioritises the mirror (enemy team must have ships of same type and tier) over the usual +/-2.

The new mirror MM is actually quite good at putting a division at different tiers in a game with both those tiers, provided the server population is quite high and queue times aren't long. Also, if you are uptiered it will drag a random to balance your fail. Yes, I have seen a poor solo T7 in a T10 game because he was there to mirror someone in a fail division. As for doing well while bottom tier, basically play to exploit whatever strengths you have while covering weakness. This usually means being a bit more passive and supporting but not always. For example, a lot of T8 ships are stealthier and more agile than their higher tier counterparts, so you can sometimes pull tricks a T10 can't, like being in an unexpected place and getting away with it. Also, play to exploit class countering. A bottom tier DD in a match with few DDs still controls the caps and vision, and is still a deadly threat to BBs. A bottom tier BB is still great at dealing with cruisers. A bottom tier cruiser is still a great DD hunter and generally a versatile little pain in the stern. Finally, remember you only need to play better than the bottom tier ship on the enemy team to have an impact. Relax and do your best, the pressure and expectation is not on you and you will be underestimated. You don't need to hard carry, just punch a bit above your weight. It's more rewarding to do well like that. P.S. the game was too slow paced for you at low tier and you find high tier better?! Are we playing the same game?!

Per shell yes, per salvo though: HE 6-gun IJN 12.7cm: 10,800 5-gun USN: 9,000 4-gun USN: 7,200 4-gun Soviet: 7,600 6-gun Soviet: 11,400 5-gun German: 7,500 6-gun 10cm: 7,200 8-gun 10cm: 9,600 AP 6-gun IJN 12.7cm: 13,200 5-gun USN: 10,500 4-gun USN: 8,400 4-gun Soviet: 10,000 6-gun Soviet: 15,000 5-gun German: 15,000 6-gun 10cm: 10,200 8-gun 10cm: 13,600 So, second best HE alpha and top 50% AP alpha. Sure, disadvantages in DPM against basically all other DDs but for opportunistic shots when you're fairly safe from return fire (e.g. kiting but can include other situations like ambushes or enemy DD radared) it's a very decent punch. I've used the guns for everything from DD duels to lighting up targets to force DCP before flood, lighting them up after they repair flooding, finishing low HP cruisers late game. As for farming BB noobs, sure there is a lot of that but the high tier meta is also very static and the BBs are sluggish and predictable. Torping BBs hence does not always rely on them being braindead, it's a standard strategy to deny them key positions or remove them so your team can take advantage.

Ranked is usually included as an available battle type to complete weekly missions so why not CB?

Ignore @Riselotte. He's a nice and knowledgeable guy most of the time but this topic triggers him to such an extent he just goes full irrational. In answer to the original question, no Asashio is not too strong. Asashio has a very unique skill set and if you've "clicked" with it like you have then you can farm the tears of battleships forever. You will however have games where you find yourself frustrated. Not as useless as others claim, but certainly needing to play around your weaknesses. As for guns, yes they have great alpha and are accurate. Dedicated gunboats with floaty arcs will fall to you if they're dumb enough to chase you and keep shooting you at ranges where you can easily dodge. That's not unique to Asashio though, that's just an IJN DD thing. People play IJN DDs like they don't have guns, which is a mistake in my opinion. This is not to say you should yolo-gunboat, you will get completely shredded. So yeah, if you like the ship, ignore the hate and carry on. But don't be under any illusions of it being OP. And no, it doesn't make other DDs suck by comparison. If you like Asashio you should really like Kagero, Yugumo, Shimakaze. Same playstyle basically, just adapt to different torpedoes. I see you already play Pan-Asia destroyers. They also have pretty good deepwater torpedoes. Asashio just effortlessly props up your damage numbers, but there are other ways to win games in a DD.

Indianapolis suffers from classic jack-of-all-trades-itis. People pick one aspect at a time, compare each one against another ship that does that one thing better, and conclude it sucks. They don't have the patience to play the ship as it requires you to accept you won't be the best at anything, but by choosing and constantly adapting your role you can be a really versatile contribution to the team. Also AP and radar.

I really liked Donskoi by the end of the grind, don't skip it. It doesn't need the range either, go reload. The people who say it absolutely needs range and playing it at 20km "because it can't do anything else" are completely wasting its potential. Go double rudder shift, that solves all your survivability issues. Stay at mid-range, wiggle a lot, it's actually surprisingly tanky and really dishes it out with reload mod + AR + IFHE. Reload for Moskva as well, although that legendary looks very intriguing.

T9, so they're going for Free XP I guess. I'm not sure if I should regret having just bought Kron instead of saving for this. Alaska with US CA bounce angles? That looks like a really sweet deal...

Haha, good laugh there! I'm sorry but it does not require any super-human feat to just ignore idiots and not sink to their level. The fact you think like this to me indicates it's not the first time you flipped out in retaliation and the report system is probably working just fine in your case. Of course, the other guy should get punished too, but how do you know he didn't? Maybe not that game but the next, if he behaves like that, he'll be chat banned too.

I have to say, obviously it's amazing we're always getting new lines and premiums and that there is such a huge amount of content in the game. But, I also feel really glad I started playing the game when I did. There are so many lines now and so many premiums, I can imagine a new player is completely swamped. On top of that, a lot of the new lines are very specialist and gimmicky which may overwhelm or put off new players who choose without understanding this. Several other games reduce the price (both in-game and real money) of old content as new content is introduced. Could this work here? Example: Original lines (full US and IJN trees) - 50% reduction in XP and Credit cost of everything at all tiers First year lines (German and Soviet Cruisers I think) - 25% reduction in XP and Credit cost of everything at all tiers From now on, every time a new line is introduced, the oldest line not already discounted gets -25% reduction in XP and Credit cost of everything at all tiers and the oldest discounted line moves to the -50% group To compensate: newest line +25% XP and Credit cost to everything in the line for the first 3 months. Same for premiums. Price reduction staggered by age with oldest at -50%, anything older than 1 year -25%. Compensate by increasing prices for brand new premiums, so people who want them now can pay extra (these people will always exist, the guys who buy the £100 bundles on release) but after some time others are not locked out and a new player can afford several ships if they want to spread out to a couple of different lines early on. Am I going mad or could this work? I just think it's a shame to lock new players out of so much content. The game is grindy enough and it will only get more and more grindy the more lines are release. I genuinely don't think this is sustainable in terms of attracting new players and keeping them interested. If we make some stuff easy while keeping other stuff hard I think the game can find a better balance.

Haha, yup. I'm a massive rudder shift addict and ever since the upgrade for cruisers came out I was wishing BBs could equip it. If I had those ships I would be using those upgrades for sure!

1.4 seconds can be a very long time, difference between a dev strike and a load of bounces on a turning target. I looked at that Republique module and thought it looked good. Don't have the ship yet but already have plenty of reason to fear it. This just adds more reason...

Which ones, a handful of T10s? Most of the cruisers Alsace sees are 25mm. That volume of fire is just as big a pain for cruisers. That and playstyle differences. I play my cruisers mobile and in the open. I'm competent at dodging since most BBs are quite predictable and telegraphed when they go for you, but Alsace just reacts too quickly and too effectively.

The guides are not out-dated. The ship has not changed for years so there is nothing new to say, existing guides are perfectly valid. As others have said, find your mid-range sweet spot, blow stuff up, wiggle around (Sounds like you're doing that anyway). This was my first BB line too and I struggled a bit at the start with Fuso. It's actually a pretty straightforward vanilla BB yet very strong. Just practice range and positioning to maximise time on target and survivability, and the guns deliver!

If a player only wants one or two lines then yes. But there is so much more to want, this isn't realistic. Let me try one more time to explain what I mean: Player A starts playing when the game is quite new. There are 10 lines to grind. He looks and he really wants 5 (50% of available content). But he only realistically has time to grind 3. Still, he gets 60% of what he wanted and 30% of the total available, so he is happy. Player B starts playing the game a few years later. There are now 24 lines. He looks and really wants 8. This is actually less greedy than Player A, because it's only 33% of the available lines. But he also only has time to realistically grind 3 lines. He gets only 37% of what he wanted originally, which is only 12% of the available lines. Do you see how Player B might see this as a bit unfair?

I just said in my more recent post that some of these earliest and cheapest champions are still top tier competitive picks. And some new ones are weak, there's really no correlation between age/cost and power level. Of course people in those games sometimes cry about power creep, but there are enough people crying about power creep in WoWs as well. It's probably closer to being the case here than in most MOBAs... Of course you don't have to have everything, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that as a % of the total content available, a new player will feel really left out at how little they can get compared to how someone might have felt starting a year or two ago.

Basically only played Zao in CW since I got it. Yes, I've made use of edge of range shots at +16% but I think that gap to +8% can be closed with the stealth/speed of the ship without it being a huge downside. Plus you've got a spotter plane for real sniping situations. I guess I fail my own argument on accuracy as Zao is excellent anyway. But it's the rudder shift that could make it really worth it to troll those Montanas waiting to delete you. Yamato yes, especially in the context of the turret traverse buff that will offset the module a bit.

Hmm OK, guess that wasn't a very popular suggestion. Still, it's fair enough people consider tier itself as content but I still think separate lines/ships are content in themselves and basically the longer the game exists, the less a new player can access for a given time investment. That's usually not a good way to keep people interested, even with regular events to speed up the grind. It's not really about the speed of the grind as such, more about the principle of access to content. That's why I use the MOBA example, as it's the closest thing I can think of where new characters to play with are added regularly and the game is always expanding. In those games the oldest characters are very cheap to unlock but they are not in any way devalued, some are top tier competitive if you're a good player with them. Choice is great but the choice is inherently time restricted. I don't see the benefit in making the choice harder and harder. A couple of years ago you could choose a few lines to spend X time on and you would have played a significant % of the ships in the game. Today you can spend the same X time for the same few lines but barely scratch the surface of what's on offer. Your choice has much less value because there is so much more to choose from. Perceived speed of progression is relative to total amount of stuff to unlock. That's why I think more choice is in a way less choice if content keeps getting added without making it easier to get it.

I'm nowhere near Hindenburg but just looking at the stats of the ship and knowing how I like to play, if I was going to forego stealth in slot 5, it would be for full rudder shift. Although you get some of that as well with the legendary module so could be interesting. Would you really sacrifice reload on the Moskva given how good her base range and accuracy are already? The no-brainer legendary upgrade for me is the Zao one.